


Waiting Impatiently for a Connection

by parttimefemmefatale (writingramblr)



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005), You've Got Mail (1998)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Movie Fusion, Alternate Universe - Online Dating, Alternate Universe - You've Got Mail Fusion, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Drabble Collection, F/M, First Meetings, Fluff and Angst, Online Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-09
Updated: 2015-08-16
Packaged: 2018-04-13 17:57:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 6,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4531587
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writingramblr/pseuds/parttimefemmefatale
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"F...O...X Fox." </p><p>A story about  two Business Rivals who hate each others guts yet are also unknown to each other as Online Best Friends and possibly more?</p><p> </p><p>Jonathan Fox is heir and manager to a Bookstore empire, and he doesn't usually think much of small businesses who think themselves a threat, they never are. But he may have met his match in children's bookstore owner Rose Tyler, who's grown up surrounded by elements of her childhood and her mother's love. She's not about to give up her life's work without a fight.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Poetic

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know the tropes and the stakes. Despite the angst, there will be a happy ending.  
> All recognizable quotes are just that, from the movie, I only used them as a springboard for the drabbles!  
> The main cast you know, spot the cameos!
> 
> This drabble series was written with the Eighth Doctor in mind to be the foil to Rose, and in honor of Eight and Rose week, will be updated daily.
> 
> Week 3 is technically the AU week, but I just couldn't wait to share this with my readers. No fear! There is a completely separate AU story for Eight x Rose August Week 3.
> 
> Drabbles in my view are short snapshots of scenes, and as such, my definition does not stick to the strict guidelines of 100 words per.

“I hear nothing, not even a sound on the streets of New York, just the beating of my own heart. Just the beating of my heart. Something like that.”

Jonathan Fox tapped his foot, trying to remember the rest of it, and his best friend and business adviser Jack Harkness simply stared at him.

“What are you going on about?”

“Oh that was just something I read this morning. Made me think.”

“Sounds very poetic. Deep.”

Jonathan grinned,

“Well yes. They usually are. Poets are deep thinkers.”

“Are they cute too?”

Jack elbowed him in the ribs and Jonathan winced.

Maybe she was.

Books&Chips had long ago stolen his interest, and though he’d never met her, seen a picture of her or even heard her voice, he liked to imagine she was as pretty as she was clever, as kind as she was patient and diligent with long replies, and would like to dance as much as Reinette hated it.

*

“Is it infidelity if you’re involved with someone on email?” Rose mused aloud, as she walked inside the Shop around the Corner, and spotted Martha organizing the pens in the cup holder beside the cash register, and her friend looked up and her brown eyes widened.

“What?”

Rose smiled sheepishly,

“I’ve been chatting with this guy online, for almost six months now, and I dunno, I feel like…I feel, it’s silly, but he’s just so much better at listening, and actually hearing me than Adam. It’s horrible of me, but I…”

Martha interrupted her,

“Have you had sex?”

Rose gasped,

“Oh no. We’ve never even met.”

Not that she hadn’t imagined what he looked like, or how he’d sound, the way his eyes might sparkle at her from across a dinner table in a romantic atmosphere.

She liked to picture him with blue or green eyes that she could drown in, and maybe with long hair she could run her fingers through while he kissed her.

But that was all her imagination.

76tardislane was simply a wonderful conversationalist.

*

“The internet is just another way to be rejected by women.” Mickey piped up, even though neither Rose nor Martha had really asked his opinion on the matter.

But Rose didn’t miss the way Martha’s eyes rolled at the words after they left his mouth.

It was a well kept not secret that the two of them had been dancing around the idea of dating for weeks.

Rose thought it was rather foolish, and Martha insisted she couldn’t date someone she worked with.

Harriet, the resident mother of the group, and Rose’s actual godmother, having been her mother Jackie’s best friend while she’d been alive, only had one thing to say on the entire matter,

“If you find someone you really think you could love, hold on to them with all you’ve got. Or else, you’ve got nothing in the end.”

Sentimental words that definitely got through to Rose, even if Mickey simply walked away and Martha pretended not to check out his ass while he did so.

She smiled to herself and continued the opening duties for the store.

Fall was just around the corner, and after that it would be time to start decorating for Christmas. She couldn’t wait. It was her favorite season, and the busiest holiday.


	2. Lone Reed

“I am a lone reed, standing tall, waving boldly, in the corrupt sands of commerce.” Rose recited the clever line Adam had written about her on his latest typewriter, and she sighed afterwards.

It sounded like the kind of thing he would write about her, while he only seemed to have eyes for his machinery.

That was probably her best excuse for why she kept turning to 76tardislane for any semblance at real communication.

If internet chatting with a complete stranger could be called that.

She logged on to find the newest message from her friend, wherein he declared he would happily send her a bouquet of sharpened pencils, if he had her name and address.

“As such I do not and can not, so I will simply wish you the happiest of autumns. There’s nothing I like better than a brisk walk before the main crowd gets out to get their Starbucks. Isn’t it funny how a place like that exists to help people who can’t make any decisions for themselves make six different ones at once? Tall, short, half caf, decaf, non fat milk, soy, sweetened or not, it’s ridiculous. Yet I find myself there every morning without fail. I’m a horrible nonconformist.”

Rose giggled as she read his message and quickly typed in a reply.

‘When it comes to coffee, I’m afraid I’m a bit of a snob in that I always get the same thing. I don’t get coffee at all. I chose earl grey tea because it reminds me of mornings with my family, and it always cheers me up. Nothing smells like mornings more than Earl grey tea. Hot!’

*

Jonathan couldn’t believe it.

Halfway through a conversation with Reinette about the silliest thing, the fact he’d been about to half to watch his father get married, for the third, or forth time, and she’d fallen asleep midsentence.

Mid his sentence.

She took sleeping pills, he knew that, but he didn’t realize she needed them to stomach sleeping next to him.

He sat up in bed, rubbed his face with his hand, and decided to do it.

He was going to check his emails.

Boe, his golden retriever followed him as he walked from his bedroom to his office, inside which his laptop sat glowing blue as it dreamed upon his desk.

It was mocking him in its ability to sleep while he could not.

The ping of the new email in his inbox cheered him greatly.

Of course it was from Books&Chips.

He grinned stupidly at the screen as he read her message.

Typing a reply, he looked over at Boe and couldn’t resist remarking,

“Here’s someone who probably doesn’t make coffee nervous.”

‘I get that reference! I am impressed that you have managed to avoid the addiction that grips the nation…caffeine. Oh sure tea has some of it, but considering the dark shade of the sludge I usually drink, I daresay that you will probably outlive me by several decades. Enjoy the turning of the leaves and tell me something, do you think we should meet?’

His hands shook somewhat after typing the message, but once it was sent, it was done.

“Here’s hoping she says yes. It’s just a meeting of friends. Nothing wrong with that.”

He looked at Boe as if that would provide justification for what he didn’t need.

Before he could over think it too much, his cell phone rang.

Months previous he might have worried about it waking Reinette, but with her serious drug usage, it was highly unlikely.

“Hello? Oh hi dad. Yeah I could do that. Just for the day? Okay. Yeah you’re welcome. Bye.”

The cell phone fell from his hands as his head replaced it.

He groaned aloud and shook his head.

When would his father learn that writing a pre-nup was as good as signing his divorce papers again?

At least he wouldn’t have to languish at the building sight all the next morning, with the new responsibility to amuse his little aunt Clara and his little brother Rory now dumped in his lap.

He returned to his bedroom reluctantly, only out of pure need for rest. He would have gladly stayed up to see if Books&Chips replied to his message, but the two munchkins would be the death of him if he did that.

*


	3. Enchanting

The bell on the desk rang and Rose glanced over from where she’d been returning her ‘Reading Princess’ hat, and what she saw was extraordinary.

She recognized the man from where he’d been sitting in the back during her reading and there were two small children clustered around him, seemingly unwilling or able to leave his side.

“Can we get this?”

“Oh look at this book!”

They exclaimed, and he simply smiled at them.

Rose blinked, remembering herself.

“Is it okay with your dad to get all those?”

The girl had a veritable stack of books in her arms, and the little boy was dwarfed by the novel in his hands.

It was a popup book, so it was perfectly understandable the fascination.

“Oh I’m not their father.”

The man spoke up, and Rose focused on him, no longer distracted by the children.

His blue eyes were incredibly magnetic.

There was a curl of brown hair drifting dangerously close to covering one of them, and she felt her hand twitch to brush it back.

How ridiculous.

“Oh?”

That was all she could manage even as she quickly looked to discover there was in fact no wedding ring and no indication of any kind that he wasn’t flirtable.

But she wasn’t technically single herself.

Rose shook herself mentally as she realized the little girl was speaking to her.

“He’s not our dad. He’s my nephew.”

Rose frowned, stunned at the revelation.

“Wait…what?”

The man grinned, displaying brilliantly white teeth and a disarming expression overtook his face,

“Yes, it’s true. Clara here is my aunt. It’s all very complicated, but her mother is married to my grandfather.”

Rose smiled at the girl, and then looked to the little boy,

“What does that make you? His uncle? His grandfather?”

The little boy giggled, and Clara shook her head.

“I’m his brother!”

The man patted the boy’s red haired head,

“Rory is the son of my father. We are, an American family.”

Rose lifted an eyebrow in reply, before speaking,

“Indeed.”

Mickey piped up from behind the counter and at her side,

“How will you be paying?”

The stack of books the children set on the counter was still ridiculous, and the figure on the cash register made Rose’s eyes widen.

“Cash.”

“Thank you for coming…you will be coming back?”

Martha interjected as she walked by, hands full of more stock.

The man nodded, looking a bit uncertain as he did so, before he handed the proper amount of cash to Mickey,

“Of course.”

Rose felt herself relax slightly,

“See, that’s why we won’t go under. That’s why Fox books isn’t going to win, customer loyalty.”

Mickey patted her on the back as he slipped by, to finish bagging the purchase.

The man ushered the children over to a small table and he turned to her, looking expectant.

“You’re Rose Tyler right?”

Rose nodded, surprised he knew her name.

“Yes, and you are?”

The man stuck out his hand,

“Jonathan. Just Jonathan. It’s nice to meet you.”

“Same here. You must have read my nametag.”

Rose felt silly.

She’d been wondering how the handsome man in front of her seemed to know her name when all the while it was pinned above her chest.

So much for destiny and all that rot.

“You have a lovely store. It’s enchanting.”

The words bounced around her mind and she realized where she’d heard them.

“Thank you. My mother used to say that’s what the ultimate goal of a bookstore should be.”

Jonathan looked taken aback, before nodding.

“I couldn’t agree more.”

Mickey passed him the heavy bag full of the children’s books, and Jonathan ushered them towards the door, but not before nodding goodbye to Rose.

“Have a good afternoon!”

“Bye miss Rose!”

Clara and Rory called in unison as they walked out the door.

Rose was left beaming at the window display until Martha nudged her in the side and brought her back down to earth.

“Well… he was something else wasn’t he?”

Rose just hummed in agreement, lost in thought.

*

“I’m the type of guy who likes to buy his way into the hearts of his children relatives.”

The lovely girl from the little children’s bookshop was gaping at him, and he was slightly disturbed to find how attracted he was to her when she got angry.

He’d made her that way, and she was justified in her reaction, but it didn’t mean he couldn’t appreciate the flush of her cheeks and the indignation in her actions as she grabbed his arm and chastised him for stealing all the caviar garnish.

“Clearly. You’re the reason the world is getting more and more about sales and pitches and highs and lows of the stock market exchange, and less and less about heart and making it in the world. Making people’s lives better, enriching the culture of society. How despicable.”

That was quite enough of that.

Jonathan stepped right up to her, and didn’t let her pass by him.

She was wearing heels, and as such he couldn’t tower over her like he wished he could, but it didn’t matter. He had her full attention.

“It’s companies like yours, so high on their own virtue and full of their own self worth, that are the reason my company can succeed. People don’t want what you have. They want Fox books. They want discounted books and plenty of quiet reading space. They want to have their coffee and drink it too.”

Rose was still looking at him like he was a mad man, but now he could fully feel like one.

She blinked at him, and he turned and walked away.

There was no other outcome to his staying there but it ending in tears for one or both of them.

He spotted Reinette across the room and quickly went to her side.

It was a last ditch effort.

He hated himself already.


	4. Go To The Mattresses

Rose got home from the party and immediately threw herself on the bed, face down into a pillow, and screamed.

Adam was still in the kitchen, preparing a late night bite, no doubt because he’d been talking all night and not bothered with any of the food tables, so she was left relatively alone.

It only took a few moments of that before her throat started feeling scratchy, so she stopped.

The next best thing to venting her rage was doing that in text form to mister 76tardislane.

What was a tardis?

She had been meaning to ask him, but she’d never gotten the chance.

Determined to do just that, she logged on and checked her emails.

A new message awaited her.

She smiled grimly and clicked it open.

“Do you ever feel you become the worst version of yourself? That a Pandora’s box of all the secret hateful parts--- your arrogance, your spite, your condescension--- has sprung open. Someone provokes you, and instead of just smiling and moving on, you zing them.Hello, its mister nasty. I’m sure you have no idea what I’m talking about.”

Her eyebrows lifted, and she began to type a reply at once, stunned at how easily the words came to her.

_‘I am totally jealous. Whenever I find myself in that sort of a situation instead of having any sort of decent clever reply I find myself at a loss for words. I am speechless. I can never do anything more than stare in silence or try not to slap the person. Then later on I will think of something and it’s far too late then. Funny you should mention this, because tonight I when faced with a bottom dweller who belittled my entire existence, I was just that, empty. I had nothing to fight back with.’_

She sent the message and was instantly rewarded with a reply.

Or rather, a pop up window of a chat message from him.

“I had a feeling you would be online.”

She recited aloud and found herself smiling, despite the annoyance on her mind that was Jonathan Fox and the scratching of her throat.

‘Hello.’

_'So here’s my thought. I’ll give you all my zingers, and then you will always have the perfect reply to anyone else who gives you shit.’_

Rose tilted her head, and quickly typed back,

‘If I take all of your witty replies, then how will you ever communicate with me again?’

_‘You’re funny. You know better than that. I may exercise my wit upon you, but I would never zing you.’_

‘So what should I do if I have to confront this person again?’

Rose was practically biting her nails as she awaited his reply.

It was speedy.

_‘Don’t let them get the best of you. Fight back. Turn their strengths against them. If all they can do is belittle you, then clearly they need a new hobby. Tell them to go find a soul for themselves.’_

‘Tough love basically.’

_‘Are they worthy of anything resembling that?’_

‘Only half of it really. I have nothing but pity for them.’

_‘Then they definitely aren’t worth your time.’_

That night, Rose went to bed feeling less like she’d missed out on an opportunity and more prepared for the fight, any fight Mr. Fox might try to send her way.

*

“They have to have sharp discounts and lattes because most of the people there have never read a book.”

It was nine o’clock in the evening, and Jonathan and Jack were working out, but he couldn’t escape her.

She’d been spearheading a publicity campaign to try and win back the readers of New York, and fight the big bad wolf, of Fox books.

He was the villain and Rose, along with most of the other mom and pop sorts of businesses he was supposedly single handedly destroying, was the victim.

“She’s probably not nearly as lovely as she looks on TV.”

Jack piped up at his side, and Jonathan started mid jog having practically forgotten he was there.

He’d been staring at the TV, at the heavily pixilated interview with Rose.

A soft autumn breeze had whipped her blonde hair around her face, and she’d impatiently brushed it away as she hastened to answer the reporter’s questions.

She was so irritating.

Jack was insane to imply what he did.

Jonathan quickly corrected him,

“Oh no, she’s beautiful…don’t get me wrong. But she’s a pill.”

He shook his head and jogged faster, completely missing the look of surprise on his best friend’s face.

The clip of the interview he’d been taped began to play and he cheered up slightly,

“Hey look, who’s a good looking guy?”

Jack grinned at him.

_“I sell cheap books. I do. So sue me.”_

Jonathan gaped at the screen, and nearly fell over.

They’d cut his interview to two lines.

They made him look like a complete and total asshole.

Jack was turning red from trying not to laugh, he just knew it.

“Well, that was nice Jon.” 

"I said more than that! I said we were great! I said you could sit for hours and read and no one would bother you. I was eloquent! Shit.”

Jack raised his eyebrows,

“Okay, if you say so. But when your dad sees that, he’s going to be more than a little annoyed.”

Jonathan was fuming.

“I don’t care. Let him. We’ve already turned a profit and we’ve only been open ten weeks.”

He wiped the sweat out of his eyes, it was stinging and was far too similar to the angry tears he’d cried when he’d first found out his father was putting him in charge of the newest branch of the company.

That was a good thing, a great thing, but it meant only that he had a whole other world of responsibility on his shoulders.

He hated it.

Some days all he wanted was to take off in that boat he’d been given for the last Christmas and birthday present, and as an apology gift for the latest divorce scandal, and take off in the harbor.

Destination, anywhere.

*


	5. The Meeting...Interrupted

“Harriet, what would mom have done?”

Rose had just received the hardest news all year.

The publicity and the smear campaign against Fox Books hadn’t made a single bit of difference in sales.

Harriet was looking at the numbers, and they weren’t changing.

Rose was toeing a very thin line between panic and calm.

Harriet pulled out the locket she wore around her neck, and opened it up, revealing a picture of Jackie, and Rose smiled sadly at Harriet before the older woman replied,

“Well, let’s ask her. Jackie…what should we do?”

Harriet put the locket to her ear and listened.

Rose blinked, tears suddenly becoming more and more of an inevitability than an option.

“Harriet…”

The older woman lifted a hand and smiled sadly,

“She doesn’t know. But she thinks the decorations in the window display are lovely.”

Of course.

Rose had used the same twinkle lights since the store had opened.

It was amazing they still held together.

“Okay.”

“I know you’ll think of something dear. Goodnight, and sleep on it.”

Harriet patted her on the shoulder before taking off into the night, leaving Rose alone with her memories and the empty shop.

*

“Do you think we should meet?”

The message from 76tardislane had gone unanswered in her inbox while the entire ‘Save the Shop Around the Corner’ campaign had been going on, and only now that Rose had decided to close, to save herself any further heartbreak and loss, did she decide to reply.

“Yes.”

Details of when and where were simply not as important as the fact that she’d finally admitted the truth.

She hoped he would be just like she imagined.

Well, better.

As she sat in the coffee shop, book and rose in front of her, cliché as they were, she awaited the meeting patiently.

Well, that was a lie.

Her foot was tapping below the table nervously, and she had already drunk two cups of earl grey tea.

Every time the bell dinged above the door signaling a new customer she felt her heart skip a beat.

She smiled at the waiter when he asked if she wanted a third cup and gratefully accepted it, and as she looked away from the door, suddenly the bell dinged again and a figure entered the shop.

His face was mostly hidden by a large purple scarf wrapped about his head to keep him warm no doubt, and he began to walk towards her.

As her heart began to falter in its steady rhythm the man began to take off his scarf.

For about five seconds she began to smile, until she recognized the icy blue eyes and the annoying curve of his smug smile.

“Jonathan.”

“Rose Tyler… what are you doing here on a Friday night? Shouldn’t you be out celebrating your retirement?”

Rose bit the inside of her cheek to keep from saying anything stupid, and when the waiter returned with her tea, she thanked him and took a large sip.

The burning hot liquid forced her to focus her attention elsewhere.

“Mind if I sit…?”

“Yes! I mind, I’m waiting for someone.”

Rose clapped her hands over the book, Pride and Prejudice of course, and shoved it further towards the other seat opposite her.

Jonathan’s gaze raked over the table and her, and he looked incredibly less handsome as he smirked at her.

“Oh…wait a minute, a book, a flower, is this some kind of anonymous meeting? Someone you met online perhaps?”

Rose gaped at him, trying to figure out how he could have put that together.

“Why don’t I sit here with you, while you wait? Keep an eye out. You never know who those people are, he could be some kind of criminal.”

Rose had never felt so angry in her entire life.

“How dare you. The man I am going to meet hasn’t got a cruel bone in his body. He couldn’t hurt a fly. He’s funny, kind, and he has more heart in his little finger than you have in your entire suit.”

Jonathan shook his head,

“I dunno about that, it seems to me like he’s late. That’s clearly not your first cup of tea…how long has he kept you waiting?”

Rose swallowed her anger as best she could, and fought to keep the hot tears at bay,

“Please leave. Just leave. I beg you.”

Jonathan’s face remained hard as stone for a moment, and then Rose saw something in it flicker to life, almost like a sadness from deep within, and then it was gone, and he was grinning,

“Okay, okay. I’ll go.”

Upon getting up from the chair that belonged to her friend, he took the seat behind her.

Rose snorted in disgust, and pulled her chair in closer to the table, further from him.

When she pulled out her compact to check her lipstick, his face filled her mirror.

“Ugh.”

“You know, I’m not all bad. I promise. If you really took the time to get to know me…”

Rose clicked her tongue in annoyance, and turned around in her chair to face him properly, snapping her compact shut,

“If I really took the time to get to know you, I know what I’d find. Instead of a brain, a cash register, instead of a heart, a bottom line.”

For a second, Rose savored her victory, and then she noticed how Jonathan’s face had fallen.

The ice had melted.

She’d zinged him perfectly.

76tardislane would be proud of her.

“Well, Rose Tyler, I’m stunned. That was a perfect blend of poetry and meanness.”

Why did he keep using her full name? It only served to agitate her more.

“Jonathan, I-“

She tried to begin to apologize, but she couldn’t seem to get the words out.

Did she really want to?

He stood up, and as it was, he now towered over her, but instead of trying to zing her back, he simply bowed.

“I think that’s my cue to leave. I hope you have a wonderful evening. Goodnight Rose.”

When the door shut on him, she knew she should have been cheering, but inside she was falling apart.

What had she done?


	6. Case of the Regrets

Jonathan sat in front of his laptop for a long time that night, with no one but Boe to distract him, Reinette had declared she was leaving him dramatically the night before, and run away with some writer she’d become besotted with, he was left with the silence of his own self doubt.

The blue glow began to hurt his eyes after a while, and he slammed the laptop closed.

“What am I going to do Boe? She hates me. She really does. But I can’t really blame her. I drove her out of business.”

Eventually he couldn’t hold off any longer, as the morning sun was beginning to rise, and he knew that Rose would be looking for a reply, a reason why he hadn’t come.

He sighed deeply and flicked open his laptop, waiting for his email to load, and he began to type.

“You were expecting to see someone you trusted, and instead you met the enemy instead **.** I cannot tell you why I was not able to make it last night, but I can only ask for your forgiveness. If you would allow me to still call you a friend, I would be very grateful. I’m always here to listen. So please, talk to me, friend.”

He clicked send, and along with the email went his heart and soul.

He prayed she wouldn’t shut him out.

*

Rose was so dizzy.

She was so hot.

Her throat itched.

She hadn’t been screaming into any pillows lately, so the mere fact was, she was sick.

Someone was buzzing her.

Knocking on the door.

It felt like they were hitting her head with a hammer.

“Who is it?”

She didn’t recognize the sound of her own voice.

“Hi Rose. Can I come in?”

It was Jonathan Fox!

‘Oh my god what is he doing here and how did he know where I lived?’

“What are you doing here?”

“I heard you were sick. So I brought you some soup and flowers. Can I please come in?”

Rose rubbed a hand over her face, and shook her head, before remembering they were only talking over the intercom.

“No I don’t think so, no. I’ve got a temperature, and I’m probably dreadfully contagious. So I think you better go.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. You’re not going to cook anything as good as what I’ve made you in that state. Let me in. Please.”

Rose frowned, and then winced.

It hurt to frown.

But why on earth was he here and being so nice?

She sighed in defeat and unlocked the door, allowing the one man she hated more than anything else on the earth to walk into her tiny little apartment.

Her little piece of home.

Her heart and soul.

Her vision was fuzzy and everything was blobby, but she swore he was actually holding a bunch of daisies.

“Those are my favorite flower. How did you know that?”

Jonathan looked as if he was sheepishly smiling,

“I asked around. Do you have a vase?”

Rose rolled her eyes, and then winced again.

Everything hurt to do when she had a fever and a headache from hell.

“In the kitchen.”

“I’ll put the soup in your fridge for later, okay?”

Rose hummed and slowly trudged back to her bedroom.

It was where she’d been heading anyway, as soon as she’d stopped the horrible knocking and buzzing.

Had that been him?

She couldn’t remember.

“Why are you here exactly? I forget.”

She’d gotten underneath several blankets, and felt as cozy as could be, and she saw him lingering in the doorway, staring at her with something strange on his face.

It almost looked like pity.

No. Not pity.

Something else.

What could it be?

“I came here because I wanted to be your friend.”

Rose yawned, and smiled against her pillow.

“Everyone’s been saying that. They think because I closed the shop I must need 24/7 care and friendship. I’m fine. I’ll be fine. Poor Adam realized I didn’t need him and he didn’t need me just in time. Before I became a sellout.”

What felt like a hand was stroking her forehead.

It felt nice.

“Rose, you’re not a sellout. You did what you had to do. What I forced you do to. For that, I will always be sorry. I’m sorry to hear about your writer…Adam.”

Rose waved a hand around weakly, as if trying to swat away a fly, but she still felt Jonathan’s arm resting on her shoulders as she faced away from him.

“It’s okay.”

“Perhaps it was meant to be. Seems like there’s a lot of that going around. Reinette left me too. I’m living on a boat now.”

Rose hummed into her pillow.

“Must be nice to have that to fall back on.”

“It’s lonely.”

His voice was so quiet she might have imagined it.

She was already half asleep.

It felt like he kissed her on the forehead before saying goodbye, but she could have imagined that too.

*

If she hadn’t been sneezing and coughing and nearly delirious with fever, he would have kissed her.

He wanted to kiss her, so so very badly.

But instead, he kissed her forehead, let her drift off to sleep, and then walked away.

When he got home that night he saw there was no reply yet from Books&Chips, but it was okay.

She still needed time.

 

A whole week went by before she replied and it was to tell him that she was sorry they hadn’t been able to meet, but hoped that there was a chance they could try again.

He replied to her that he would be honored to do just that, but he was currently in the middle of a project that needed some tweaking.


	7. If Only...

Over the next couple of weeks, Jonathan did his best to be a friend to Rose.

Several occasions that meant running into her at the store, in the market, at her favorite coffee shop, and just sitting and listening to her.

He could have made a big deal out of it, but he never did.

He always paid.

He couldn’t have done any less.

On the seventh, date as he thought of them secretly, she mentioned something about her friend who she’d tried to meet.

She’d mentioned _him_ a few times before, and he’d been delighted to hear the way she talked about him. It made him feel ridiculously warm and fuzzy inside, and he hoped it didn’t show on his face.

She literally lit up when she spoke of _him_ and it broke his heart that she didn’t know.

He teased her relentlessly when she became too obvious about her feelings for _him_ and she fought back easily, unafraid to zing him, for now they were even.

He’d taught her well.

“He asked me to meet him again. Tomorrow.”

The big day had arrived without him hardly noticing.

It made him extremely nervous if he was honest.

He looked over at her, as she sat perched on the barstool, at the table which overlooked the street, and all the passersby.

She was beautiful.

How could he have not loved her?

“That’s big.”

“Oh yeah. I’m just hoping he actually comes this time.”

Jonathan shrugged,

“I’m sure if he had a good reason not to, he’s got every reason to show this time. Why wouldn’t he?”

Rose tilted her head and looked at him, slightly skeptical.

She still had a sort of guard up around him, despite the friendship they’d developed.

“I dunno. I get the feeling that something big happened. That’s why he couldn’t come. Maybe a change of heart.”

Jonathan looked away from her. Staring too long at her was like looking at the sun. He was certain he could go blind from it.

“A change of heart? You think he doesn’t still feel what you do anymore? Has the tone of his emails changed?”

Rose looked thoughtful when he dared turn her way again, and she shrugged,

“Not really. The replies are shorter, and we don’t talk on instant chat, but it’s mostly the same. I wonder how his project is going. He said it needed tweaking.”

Jonathan nearly choked on his drink.

“Tweaking? Tweaking as in ‘t-w-e-a-k-i-n-g’ tweaking?”

Rose giggled, and nodded.

“Yep. I didn’t even know that was a word until he used it. I had to google it.”

Jonathan grinned at her amusement on _his_ behalf.

She looked easily twice as lovely when she laughed.

He wished he could make that happen more often.

As they left the restaurant, he found himself growing wistful.

Not to the point of blowing the whole charade, but close enough.

“Rose, do you ever wonder?”

She turned to look at him, and he saw it in her eyes.

The possibility of another way.

“Do you ever think…If I hadn’t been Fox books, and you hadn’t been Shop around the Corner, and you and I had just…met…I would have asked for your number, and I wouldn’t have been able to wait 24 hours before calling you up and saying, hey, how about some coffee, or drinks or dinner, or a movie, for as long as we both shall live? And you and I would never have been at war, and the only thing we would have fought about would be which video to rent about on a Saturday night…if only.”

  
“We wouldn’t have even fought about that. Who fights about which movie to rent?”

She smiled at him, and he saw something like sadness in her eyes.

His heart broke all over again.

But it wasn’t for nothing.

There was the dream of tomorrow.

“Not us. Never us.”

“If only.”

The words fell from her lips like a death sentence, but it wasn’t over.

He watched her walk away and steeled himself to turn away and not look back.

If he looked back he was lost.

*

The next morning dawned bright and clear, and surprisingly sunny and warm.

Rose flipped through her closet only for a few minutes before deciding on a dress.

“Why not right? Snot as if I’ve got much to lose.”

Flats and a sweater just in case completed her outfit.

The park where 76tardislane had wanted to meet was only a short walk from her apartment, so thank goodness for small mercies.

She started out her door at half past eight, and she arrived at the park nearly twenty minutes early.

Instead of going over to the nearest Starbucks, and risk missing him, she decided to walk around the park.

The flowers were just beginning to bloom, and though she didn’t spot any daisies, they were still beautiful to look at.

“Boe! Come back here! Boe!”

The anguished voice of a dog owner filled the air, and Rose spun around to see a sweet golden retriever running almost directly at her.

She smiled automatically.

“Hello there. Trying to lose your owner are you?”

She knelt down to pet it, and then looked around for said owner.

It wasn’t until she saw a familiar figure walking towards her that she realized…

“Boe…Boe the dog. He mentioned him a while back. Near Christmas…”

Her voice fell from a hushed whisper to absolute silence.

Jonathan Fox was standing before her.

She got back to her feet, and her eyes began to sting without her permission.

“I wanted it to be you. I hoped it was you…so badly.”

Jonathan stepped closer to her, and pulled something out of his pocket, it was a handkerchief.

“Don’t cry, my Books&Chips, don’t cry.”

Rose felt like stomping her foot at the ridiculousness of it all.

How the whole time they’d been slinging harmful words at each other in person, but practically spouting poetry back and forth on the internet.

“Will you ever tell me what the heck a ‘tardis’ is?”

He’d wiped her tears away, and she’d let him put his arms around her, as Boe danced around their feet.

“Someday, when I figure out what it stands for, then Rose Tyler, you shall know all my secrets. For now, know this, I love you.”

Rose’s eyes fell shut and the world stopped as Jonathan leaned in to kiss her.

Though it had been mostly a dream that the moment would ever come, when it finally did, it blew all of her expectations away.

They fit together like two puzzle pieces, and his kiss indeed took her breath away.

Her hands slid up his back and shoulders and found their way into his hair, and she felt him smile against her lips.

“It’s very soft. I knew it.”

He brushed his thumb over her cheek,

“What’s that?”

“Ever since the first moment we met, I wondered what your hair would feel like to the touch.”

Jonathan was clearly amused, and he planted a quick peck on her nose before hugging her close,

“Ever since that first moment, I think I was a lost cause.”

“Me too.”

*

**END**

 


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